Mr. Hofmann began his career in banking at Bayerische Hypotheken- und Wechsel- Bank followed by Bank of America in Hamburg, responsible for the bank's shipping activities in Germany and American Express Bank in Munich as institutional credit officer. In 1984 he joined Bache Securities in Munich as an account executive and was then recruited by Deutsche Bank Frankfurt in 1989 to set up the first derivative brokerage operation for the Bank. Mr. Hofmann joined DTB (now Eurex) in 1992 as head of operations and market supervision. At the request of the exchange, he set up the country's first commodity derivatives exchange, the Hannover Commodity Exchange and was appointed CEO in 1996. In 1998 Mr. Hofmann joined DST Catalyst, a Chicago-based provider of exchange trading systems as global head of marketing and sales. Mr Hofmann worked for a number of financial services technology firms from 2002-2005 before joining Fortis Bank Global Clearing in 2006 as Managing Director of the Bank's German speaking markets.

See also: 02:30 pm ‘Europe - Initiatives for more competition'